While renaming Twitter to X would effectively mark the end of an era for the app, this would be a physical manifestation of the same.

According to X owner Elon Musk, the company now plans to move out of San Francisco in protest against changes to California law with which he disagrees.

Yesterday, Governor of California Gavin Newsom signed a law prohibiting school districts from notifying parents if their child uses different pronouns or identifies as a different gender than that indicated on their school report card. The change is intended to protect LGBTQ+ youth by countering “forced outing,” but many believe the change harms families by withholding such information from parents.

And Musk, who has had personal experience in this area with his own children, is anything but happy with the update.

In response to the announced change, Musk stated that this was “the straw that broke the camel’s back”:

“Because of this and many other laws before it that targeted both families and businesses, SpaceX will now move its headquarters from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas. And X The headquarters will be moved to Austin.”

Musk says he warned Newsom about the potential impact of such a change and also mentioned problems with gangs and “violent drug addicts” in the streets surrounding the X building that contributed to his decision.

This alone is a landmark and was for a long time the heart of the global Twitter empire.

Almost immediately after taking over the company, Musk made changes to the building: he reworked the Twitter sign, renamed conference rooms and offices, consolidated teams into smaller groups, cleared out large parts of the facility, and finally, after renaming the company, sold numerous Twitter artifacts.

Musk also had a temporary X erected on the roof of the building, but it had to be removed after complaints.

In fact, Musk's move of X's headquarters to Austin is just an extension of his ongoing efforts to transform the company formerly known as Twitter into a separate creation that will likely function better in closer proximity to Tesla's headquarters.

Still, if it happens, it would be a major upheaval, as a major technology company moves out of San Francisco and potentially loses many of its technical talent.

I mean, this really isn't a surprise. Musk has been threatening to move the company out of San Francisco all along, and it's also worth noting that he has actually done nothing on that front so far.

And maybe the additional costs and complications of an office move are still prohibitive at this point. But the desire is there, and Musk wants to drive X out of Silicon Valley, as he wants to start his own tech hub in Texas instead.

In some ways, this would mark the end of an era. But in reality, that era is long over. X is not Twitter, and what the app once was is very different from what it is today.

A physical move to Texas would also be a symbolic redesign of the new state of X.

The post Elon Musk Plans To Transfer X HQ Out of San Francisco appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

While renaming Twitter to X would effectively mark the end of an era for the app, this would be a physical manifestation of the same.

According to X owner Elon Musk, the company now plans to move away from San Francisco in protest against changes to California law with which he disagrees.

Yesterday, Governor of California Gavin Newsom signed a law prohibiting school districts from notifying parents if their child uses different pronouns or identifies as a different gender than that indicated on their school report card. The change is intended to protect LGBTQ+ youth by countering “forced outing,” but many believe the change harms families by withholding such information from parents.

And Musk, who has had personal experience in this area with his own children, is anything but happy with the update.

In response to the announced change, Musk stated that this was “the straw that broke the camel’s back”:

“Because of this and many other laws before it that targeted both families and businesses, SpaceX will now move its headquarters from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas. And X The headquarters will be moved to Austin.”

Musk says he warned Newsom about the potential impact of such a change and also mentioned problems with gangs and “violent drug addicts” in the streets surrounding the X building that contributed to his decision.

This alone is a landmark and was for a long time the heart of the global Twitter empire.

Almost immediately after taking over the company, Musk made changes to the building: he reworked the Twitter sign, renamed conference rooms and offices, consolidated teams into smaller groups, cleared out large parts of the facility, and finally, after renaming the company, sold numerous Twitter artifacts.

Musk also had a temporary X erected on the roof of the building, but it had to be removed after complaints.

In fact, Musk's move of X's headquarters to Austin is just an extension of his ongoing efforts to transform the company formerly known as Twitter into a separate creation that will likely function better in closer proximity to Tesla's headquarters.

Still, if it happens, it would be a major upheaval, as a major technology company moves out of San Francisco and potentially loses many of its technical talent.

I mean, this is really no surprise. Musk has been threatening to move the company out of San Francisco all along, and it's also worth noting that he has actually done nothing on that front so far.

And maybe the additional costs and complications of an office move are still prohibitive at this point. But the desire is there, and Musk wants to drive X out of Silicon Valley, as he wants to start his own tech hub in Texas instead.

In some ways, this would mark the end of an era. But in reality, that era is long over. X is not Twitter, and what the app once was is very different from what it is today.

A physical move to Texas would also be a symbolic redesign of the new state of X.

The post Elon Musk Plans to Transfer X HQ out of San Francisco appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Fresh plans for San Francisco’s St. Ignatius College Preparatory School’s campus expansion—dubbed the New Learning Commons—in the Outer Sunset neighborhood have been filed with the city.

The multiphase expansion would demolish a chapel, a dining hall, an administrative office building and a garage at the north end of the campus, which hosts the private Catholic school built in 1969. The campus runs along 37th Avenue between Pacheco and Rivera streets. 

Upon completion, the new campus expansion will be three stories high over a basement level—the same height as the main academic building. It would feature classrooms and assembly spaces hosting many of the same activities held in the demolished buildings.

A new two-story entrance will connect the existing main academic building and the new construction.

A two-story space connecting the main academic building and the new addition will serve as a new entrance.

READ MORE: First Look: San Francisco Towers Could Bring 1,100 Homes

A rendering shows buildings set to be demolished to make way for St. Ignatius’ new campus expansion. | Source: Courtesy Cavagnero AssociatesA rendering shows what the entryway to a new addition to the St. Ignatius College Preparatory School in San Francisco’s Sunset District will look like when complete. | Source: Cavagnero Associates

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The expansion will also include a two-story open commons with a roof deck, which will bring in natural light and allow the hosting of educational gatherings.

The expansion will require the removal of 13 school parking spaces. A total of 150 new bicycle parking spaces will be added.

The project is expected to cost around $200 million to complete the first phase, and the school expects to have all permits in place by the end of 2024. The school is raising money for the expansion and will build the expansion in phases as it receives funds, according to its website.

“The New Learning Commons will be the most ambitious project in SI’s history.
Once completed, it will enhance traditional, immersive, project- and technology-based learning, and will be a legacy for generations of Wildcats to come,” the school’s website states.

The post San Francisco St. Ignatius Faculty Reveals Off New Campus Plans appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Landowners in Stinson Beach, California, are in dispute with local authorities over trying to build home on the beach. Neighbours are concerned about the project

Sea levels in the area are expected to rise(Getty Images)

A family is gearing up for a battle with their future neighbours because they want to stop them renovating and old shack, even though they have owned the land for nearly nine decades.

The shack is located on a popular and picturesque part of Stinson Beach, California where Brian Johnson, 65, hopes to build a two-storey, 1,488-square-foot house on the plot on 21 Calle del Onda. Now consisting of a chimney surrounded by overgrown plants, the shack is a relic of the Smith family’s summer getaway spot built in the 1930s.

Its descendants, including Johnson, have run headlong into a legal dispute despite the approval of the Marin County Planning Commission in an August decision. Neighbours are concerned about the project and people in government at the state and local levels are concerned about the changing environment.

READ MORE Taylor Swift attends Travis Kelce NFL game after sharing picture inside his family home

The plans are up for a review on Tuesday(MarinCounty.org)

Johnson says the development of the project has cost $335,000 and it passed a number of environmental reviews. “It’s not like we’re building an oil refinery or a nuclear power plant on the coast,” he said to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Consultant to the owners – Brian is a majority owner – Steven Kinsey said it was odd the ” last 80 feet” of the beachfront were being “treated differently” in the area where houses line up along the sand dunes.

Some view the area as environmentally important and the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy calls it one of the “best swimming beaches in northern California.” Marin County is also considering a dune restoration project in the area costing a possible $50 million.

The shack is located on a popular and picturesque part of Stinson Beach, California where Brian Johnson, 65, hopes to build a new house(Gado via Getty Images)

“This is an environment that is changing,” commission member Don Dickinson said. Dickinson, who voted against the proposal, added: “Maybe it’s changing more rapidly than some people thought.”

Rising sea levels now threaten the historic community along with flooding from a creek nearby and there are further concerns around the septic tank needed at the property after storms damaged the area last winter. Now, a decision by the Marin County Board of Supervisors is due on Tuesday.

Opposition to the project can be found among locals like Scott Tye, the Vice Chair of the Marin chapter of the conservation group Surfrider Foundation. “The (California) Coastal Act says you don’t sacrifice important natural habitat for the development of the property for a commercial residential structure… Particularly if it’s one of the few left standing,” he said.

The California Coastal Commission has also said in a letter to the Marin County Planning Commission that it has “significant concerns regarding potential impacts to environmentally sensitive habitat areas, including dune habitat; (and) siting this development in such a hazardous area”.

For all the latest news, politics, sports, and showbiz from the USA, go to The Mirror US

The post Neighbours block shack renovation plans regardless of household proudly owning land for 90 years appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Los Angeles, California–(Newsfile Corp. – November 13, 2023) – SOS Moving Company, a full-service local and interstate mover operating in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Orange County, has announced plans for nationwide expansion. The mover looks to repurpose the strategies that elevated the brand in the California market, to grow exponentially in the national market.

SOS Moving Company: Full-service local and interstate movers

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:
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SOS Moving’s stated mission is to deliver peace of mind through safe and stress-free relocation services to every client, regardless of the complexity and distance of the move. The overarching strategy is to establish SOS Moving Company as a premier moving company across America – not just California.

In expanding operations nationwide, a primary objective is to maintain the same level of professionalism, customer service, and communication that facilitated growth from 3 trucks to 40 during a global pandemic. Some of the factors that the company believes has elevated its profile are the differentiated services included for commercial and residential clientele including:

• Apartment Movers
• Commercial Movers
• Packing Services
• White Glove Movers
• Storage Services
• Long-Distance Movers

This comprehensive approach to customer service and communication is intended to help clients of all levels of fame be more confident in their relocation process. The strategies employed for high-profile clients like Snoop Dogg, Frank Grillo, Bella Porch, and Selma Hayek in Los Angeles are designed to work equally well for tech execs in San Francisco.

Non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) are available to protect the privacy of Seattle and Orange County residents as they do Hollywood celebrities. Learned best practices can be carried over into new markets nationally. However, some partnerships – like with the Oscars ceremony red carpets – may be market specific and require last partnerships within a region.

The aim is to continue to provide the same experiences across the country that brought the SOS Moving Company to this place of growth. As the team grows to accommodate new locations and clients, all work will be focused on the goal of being the best moving company in the United States.

The company ethos through expansion will remain around the values of:

• Professionalism – The foundation of company services.
• Communication – Planning and implementing strategies with complete client buy-in and periodic updates.
• Customer Service – A customer-centric approach for service delivery that makes the client the center focus.
• Modernity – Integrating modern tech solutions to simplify processes that will eventually automate a nationwide enterprise.

The brand’s focus on improved customer satisfaction and new national partnerships are intended to jump-start development and advancement. The promise to surpass customer expectations is thought to be the driving force behind the brand’s increased visibility among California movers, the word of mouth that created a Top 5 California mover.

By attempting to hold true to proven outcomes, SOS Moving is leveraging its experience in the California market as a proof of concept to expand nationally. Seattle is a market beyond its California base that can be studied as a variable and extrapolated outward to create a new set of data points to be crunched and examined.

The human elements of the process and strategy can keep the mover grounded and on a familiar course. What brought success in the days of Los Angeles are designed to bring success to Atlanta one day.

About SOS Moving Company

The team at SOS Moving Company values professionalism, efficiency, and a can-do attitude

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:
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SOS Moving Company was founded in Los Angeles in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent economic downturn. However, the mover was able to grow the fleet of moving trucks and expand into new markets by October 2021. SOS understood the necessity to pivot operations, shift resources, and adapt strategies to navigate through unsettling times more effectively.

The company gives back to the community by offering special rates for low-income housing relocations, while contributing to various charities that support minorities and people in need. By supporting charitable organizations, they seek to uplift disadvantaged communities and individuals, embodying the spirit of corporate social responsibility.

To learn more about SOS Moving Company, please visit the company website or contact:

Akzhol Zhumagulov
[email protected]

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/187127

The post SOS Shifting Firm Broadcasts Plans for Nationwide Enlargement appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

A New York developer is pushing forward on plans to build two high-rise apartment towers in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood in what could result in a major burst of activity for the city’s otherwise stagnant construction pipeline.

Tishman Speyer submitted an update for its project at 655 Fourth St. that would include two high-rise residential towers that would collectively result in more than 1,100 housing units, according to San Francisco Planning Department filings. The revised proposal no longer includes the hotel and office components included in earlier versions of the proposal, which the developer began pursuing nearly a decade ago.

The latest version, if approved, would result in two towers that would each surpass more than 400 feet. One would span 38 levels, while the other would top out at 40 levels, and combined would include a mix of studio, one, two and three-bedroom units. The project would require the demolition of the three existing buildings and seven surface parking lots to make room on the site, which is right across the street from Caltrain and Central Subway stations.

Nearly 10,000 square feet of street-level retail and amenity space would also be included in the revised project.

The new plans mark a significant shift in Tishman Speyer’s outlook for San Francisco’s commercial real estate market, which prior to the pandemic was fueled by the nation’s priciest office rates and a bustling tourism economy.

In the years since Tishman Speyer began to pursue the project, however, the pandemic and subsequent economic shifts have resulted in a record amount of vacant office space, plummeting valuations and a battered hospitality market, all of which have all but drained the city’s development pipeline. The developer said in its revised application that the changes are a direct result of the pandemic and attempt to ensure the project’s feasibility as the firm tries to navigate the current uncertainty.

“These changes will create a more viable project,” a Tishman Speyer spokesperson said in a statement, adding that the New York developer “is committed to moving the project forward at the point and time that make sense.”

Tishman Speyer acquired the SoMa site for $40 million in June 2019. The Fourth Street project is estimated to cost upwards of $500 million to construct, according to planning documents.

While the city struggles with an office vacancy rate that has skyrocketed past 30%, multifamily demand has been far more steady. Still one of the priciest markets in the nation, a typical unit in the city commands more than $3,000 per month, according to CoStar data, roughly double the national average.

The post Tishman Speyer Plans Extra Than 1,000 Multifamily Models Close to San Francisco Transit Station appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

OAKLAND Athletics have been edging closer to joining the Oakland Raiders, their once-neighbors, and securing a move to Las Vegas.

The MLB team’s relocation push comes after numerous failed attempts to build a new ballpark in the San Francisco Bay Area — with one of the biggest projects falling through 18 years ago.

The Oakland Athletics revealed new ballpark plans in 2005 with the arena, located across the street from the aging Coliseum, supposed to fit 35,000 spectatorsCredit: Oakland A’s
The ballpark would feature one of the biggest scoreboards in the major leagues and a built-in hotel or an apartment building with thousands of residential unitsCredit: Oakland A’s
The A’s reportedly saw at least eight attempts to build a new ballpark fail before the franchise began Las Vegas relocation talksCredit: 2023 Getty Images

In 2005, then-A’s owner Lew Wolff revealed plans to construct a new home for his team just north of the iconic Coliseum.

It would consist of a two-tiered stadium with a capacity of 35,000 and one of the largest scoreboards in the major leagues.

The development would also feature a shopping plaza, a new subway station, and even a built-in hotel in one of the outfield walls — or an apartment building with thousands of residential units.

“The Oakland Athletics don’t just want to build a new ballpark, they want to build an entire neighborhood,” The East Bay Times wrote at a time.

The sports complex would be located across the road from the Coliseum, stretching from 66th Avenue all the way to High Street — on a land of about 100 acres.

The ballpark itself was estimated to cost between $300-$400 million, according to The San Francisco Chronicle.

It was expected to be built mostly with private funds, though.

However, the project’s success hinged on getting more than 30 business owners occupying the land to sell their properties and relocate.

“We are not here to ask you to bully people out of their property,” Wolff said in 2005.

“Maybe there are some people who are community-orientated and who would step back and support this.”

In the end, the A’s and Oakland politicians failed to strike an agreement with the landowners and the development plans fell through.

Currently, the area is home to businesses ranging from coffee wholesalers to auto parts and plumbing supply stores — and even features a flea market.

The A’s saw at least eight different ballpark construction projects fail before they began Las Vegas relocation talks, NBC Bay Area reported this year.

The franchise has reportedly purchased and secured public funding for a new $1.5 billion arena along the famous Strip, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

MLB owners are expected to vote on the team’s relocation in mid-November.

The post Contained in the Oakland A’s unbelievable MLB stadium plans that included built-in lodge appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Julie Anderson
Omaha World-Herald

Children’s Hospital & Medical Center soon will begin construction on a $46 million, 60,000-square-foot pediatric outpatient center at 204th and Harrison streets.

Kathy English, Children’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, said the facility will provide more convenient access for children and families who travel from west Omaha and beyond to the hospital campus near 84th Street and West Dodge Road to see specialists for outpatient care. More than 50% of the children served currently come from outside the greater Omaha area.

The new facility, she said, also will allow Children’s to expand and see more children.

“We’re pretty full here, and we need more space,” English said.

The two-story facility is slated to open in spring 2024. The 10-acre site also has room for a second phase of construction, she said. Children’s eventually anticipates moving the outpatient surgery center now located in the Village Pointe area to the new location.

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Children’s Hospital & Medical Center soon will begin construction on a new 60,000-square-foot pediatric outpatient center at 204th and Harrison Streets.

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“We’re going to try to make this a western hub for us,” English said.

One module of the new outpatient center will house orthopedics and sports medicine. That area will include a glass-enclosed indoor space as well as Children’s first outdoor rehabilitation space.

Children rehabilitate by playing, English said, “so we’re going to have part of the outdoor space with trails and stepping stones that would challenge kids to move.”

Outdoor spaces for sports medicine patients will include areas where youths can run and kick balls, “so we give them space to rehab that would have the kinds of activities they would normally do as kids,” she said.

Cardiac and pulmonary services also will be available, and eight other specialties will rotate through as needed. The center also will house a Children’s Physicians primary care clinic as well as radiology and laboratory services, nutritional care and some behavioral health services.

In addition to the outpatient rehabilitation spaces, English said, the health system is taking lessons learned from COVID-19 in designing the facility. As a result, it will include a drive-thru area where providers could see and treat a child in a car.

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50 icons of Nebraska people, history and heritage

Vise-Grip

Nebraska State Historical Society

These locking pliers, developed by Danish immigrant William Petersen and patented in 1924, took a strong hold on the small town of DeWitt. Petersen began production at his blacksmith shop, but by 1928 the company he founded had more than 600 employees. The metal tools were popular additions to toolboxes because they enabled a craftsman to grab a nut or a bolt and hold onto it, leaving his hands free. In 2002 the company was sold by remaining family members, and it closed its doors in 2008. Vise-Grips, although not made in DeWitt anymore, are still sold in almost every hardware store.

Sandhill cranes

FRANCIS GARDLER/Lincoln Journal Star

Although they don’t call Nebraska home, these fly-by residents have been regular visitors to the central Platte Valley for centuries. The yearly spring migration of 500,000, 4-foot tall, gray-feathered birds with jaunty red caps, who arrive in March and are usually gone by mid-April, has made an impact in both the birds’ numbers and in our response to them. Visitors from around the country come to watch them fly from their roost on the river in the morning and stalk the corn stalks during the day from buses and blinds, and all of that is good for the state. The most recent economic study estimates that crane-related tourism in 2009 generated $8.08 million in direct economic impact by visitors in central Nebraska. And a survey done in 2010 showed that more than 70,000 crane watchers spent an average of 1.3 days in the region (75 percent of those who came to see the cranes were planning on spending at least one night).

And in the past 30 years, groups have worked to protect and maintain this river-side environment, with more than 10,000 acres of habitat set aside.

State capitol

Journal Star file photo

New York architect Bertram Goodhue described his distinctive building as the “tower on the Plains,” made from Indiana limestone and begun in April 1922. It took 10 years to complete the project at a cost of $9.8 million. The Sower, which stands 19½ feet tall on a 12½-foot-tall base of corn and wheat shocks, represents the state’s agricultural background and can be seen for miles. Thousands of Nebraskans came to watch the hulky bronze statue placed on top with a crane when the tower was completed in the third phase of construction. Its interior is as distinctive as the exterior, with floor mosaics depicting a variety of Nebraska motifs, as well as wall murals and the ornate legislative and Supreme Court chambers.

Sebesta family trunk

Nebraska State Historical Society

Ignac and Marie Sebesta came to the United States around 1910, arriving after a long journey across the ocean with whatever they could pack into their wooden trunk. Like other immigrants, the Sebestas began their American life working for farmers, at first in Milligan, then Tobias. Three Nebraska cities were on the list of the top 10 cities in the country where Czech immigrants settled. For those starting life in a new country with only one piece of luggage, these trunks held only the most essential or the most precious things. And many immigrants could not  afford even a wooden trunk for their travels, packing their belongings into a cloth bag. Beyond the obvious items — clothing or shoes — the immigrants may have brought seeds, tools or cloth. If there was room, they might have tucked in a silver thimble and needle and thread, and possibly portraits of family and a Bible.

Kool-Aid

Courtesy photo

In 1927 Edwin Perkins of Hastings put his chemistry skills to work and came up with the powdered, fruit-flavored drink we call Kool-Aid. It came in six flavors — strawberry, cherry, lemon-lime, grape, orange and raspberry, and by 1929 the 10-cent packets were being distributed nationwide to grocery stores.

During the Great Depression, Perkins slashed the price to 5 cents a package and made it affordable, even for children, who often set up their own stands. Even though he moved the operation to Chicago in 1931 and in 1953 sold it to General Foods, which came up with the familiar smiley-faced pitcher, the Perkins family still calls Hastings home, and a Kool-Aid museum is based there.

Dorothy Lynch salad dressing

Courtesy photo

Once you taste this not-quite-French salad dressing made with celery seeds and a hint of both sweet and sour, there is no substitute. From its St. Paul Legion Club origins in the late 1940s, where its namesake (yes, there really was a Dorothy Lynch) served it to veterans on weekends, this dressing became a regional hit.

In 1964, Tasty-Toppings Inc. bought the recipe and began producing it in Columbus and later Duncan. Yes, they have tinkered with it a bit, introducing a fat-free version and changing the familiar glass bottle shape. In fact, it is even gluten-free. Luckily, former Nebraskans can buy it in 35 states, and the company even will ship it directly to your house.

Grover Cleveland Alexander’s cleats

Museum of Nebraska Major League Baseball

Baseball players and writers from Grover Cleveland Alexander’s era referred to him as “the best pitcher to ever put on a pair of shoes.” It’s hard to argue. Nicknamed “Old Pete,” the righty from Elba won 373 games (third all-time) between 1911 and 1930 with the Philadelphia Phillies, Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals. He pitched the Cards to a World Series championship over Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and the rest of the New York Yankees in 1926, winning two games and coming in the seventh inning of the decisive seventh game with the bases loaded, two outs and the Cards clinging to a 3-2 lead. He struck out Tony Lazzeri and then held the Yanks scoreless for two more innings to earn the save. In 1938, he became the first Nebraskan inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Swanson’s TV dinner

Courtesy photo

These were made in Omaha by C.A. Swanson and Sons — who may or may not have had the idea first — but the company was the first  to get the dinners into thousands of America’s freezers in 1953. The original effort, officially called a “TV Brand Frozen Dinner,” came in a compartmentalized aluminum tray and included turkey, cornbread stuffing, frozen peas and sweet potatoes, and it was just the right size to fit on a TV tray. If you set your oven at 425 degrees and cooked it for 25 minutes, your 98-cent dinner would be ready.

By 1955, the company was selling 25 million units, and a new chapter in cooking had begun.

American bison

TED KIRK/Lincoln Journal Star

Nebraska is where the buffalo roamed. For centuries the bison was central to the life of Plains Indian tribes. The 2-ton wooly beasts provided food, clothing, shelter and tools during that time. Settlement of that land, beginning in the 1830s, created problems for the bison herds, which were said to number in the millions at one time. Between 1830 and 1880, hunters and fur traders organized bison hunts killing hundreds of bison at a time. As a result, by the 1900s, the American bison was near extinction. Theodore Roosevelt came to its rescue, enacting federal legislation protecting the bison. Wild bison herds are now mostly in national parks, but a small herd can be found on 2,000 acres of the tallgrass prairie on Shoemaker Island in the Platte River.

Cowboy boots

Nebraska State Historical Society

Albert B. Persinger came to the Nebraska Panhandle in 1876 from Alabama, where he started the Hardscrabble Ranch and raised purebred Hereford cattle near Lodgepole. His leather boots were made by O.H. Hyer of Olathe, Kan. Cowboys like Persinger were in their heyday in Nebraska from the 1870s to 1890s during open-range days. But even in the 1870s, the Nebraska Legislature ruled that counties could invoke a herd law, which would would ban cattle roaming at large.

We don’t know much about the thousands of cowboys who were working the Nebraska range during that time. Historians describe them as “footloose laborers on horseback.” But we do know that it wasn’t all happy trails — cowboys worked seven days a week, sunup to sundown for little pay and in all kinds of weather. Lack of pastureland, wire fence and the meatpacking industry adjusting cattle prices all contributed to fewer cowboys riding the range.

Bison scapula hoe

ERIC GREGORY/Lincoln Journal Star

Found in the Medicine Creek Valley near Stockville, this bison shoulder blade hoe was discovered in 1934 at the remains of a Native earth lodge. Tools like this were used by the people of the Central Plains tradition, which is what archaeologists called the village farmers who lived in hamlets along the rivers and streams in Nebraska from 1000 A.D. to 1400 A.D. By the end of this period, groups had started to grow gourds and corn in small-scale gardens. Intensified cultivation of domesticated crops coincided with an increase in prehistoric Indian populations. Although hunting and fishing continued to be very important, a less-nomadic economy developed. Food surpluses, such as corn, were stored in underground storage pits dug into the floors of earth lodges.

Tools like these were the forerunners of plows pulled by oxen and later the giant John Deere equipment that today’s farmers use in their fields.

Unicameral Legislature gavel

Nebraska State Historical Society

Nebraska operated under a bicameral legislature until the early 1930s, when U.S. Sen. George Norris campaigned for reform, saying the two-house system was archaic. In 1934, voters agreed, passing an amendment to make Nebraska the only one-house legislature in the country. The pounding of this gavel began the first unicameral session in 1937, which not only proved to be efficient but inexpensive. The last bicameral session in 1935 with 133 legislators ran 110 days, passed 192 bills and cost $202,593. The first unicameral session two years later with just 43 legislators lasted 92 days, passed 214 bills and cost $103,445.

Johnny Carson coffee mug

Elkhorn Valley Museum

The late, great Johnny Carson chatted up celebrities and sipped from this mug from behind his desk on the set of “The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson.” Although born in Iowa, Carson called Nebraska home, having grown up in Norfolk and graduating from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln before embarking on his entertainment career. He kept audiences in stitches for 30 years (1962-92) on NBC via his monologues, comedy sketches, interviews and those patented deadpan looks of his.

A PBS documentary tabbed Johnny Carson the “King of Late Night” for his 30-year run as host of NBC’s “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.”

Jeff Kinney’s jersey

Journal Star file photo

The “Game of the Century” that pitted undefeated No. 1-ranked Nebraska against undefeated No. 2-ranked Oklahoma at Owen Field in Norman, Okla., produced a plethora of memorable plays — particularly Johnny Rodgers’ 72-yard first-quarter punt return.

But the most memorable object was the No. 35 jersey worn by Husker tailback Jeff Kinney. Kinney carried the ball 31 times during the game, rushing for 171 yards and four touchdowns.

The tear-away jersey began to rip apart in the first half and was in tatters during his final four rushes. Those carries capped a 12-play, 74-yard drive that saw Kinney follow a block from fullback Maury Damkroger (46) and plunge into the end zone to give Nebraska the clinching touchdown in the greatest game in college football history. Final score: Nebraska 35, Oklahoma 31.

“In the Year 2525” 45 rpm record

Courtesy photo

The biggest hit to come out of Nebraska, Zager and Evans’ “In the Year 2525 (Exordium and Terminus)” spent six weeks at the top of the Billboard charts in 1969. It was the most popular song in the country when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon and during the Woodstock Music Festival.

Zager and Evans was a four-piece Lincoln group that was fronted by singer/guitarists Denny Zager and Rick Evans and included drummer Dave Trupp and bassist Mark Dalton.

Written by Evans and recorded for $500 in an Odessa, Texas, studio, the folk-rock tune that portends the end of the human race because of technological innovations was initially released on Truth Records, a local label. After becoming a regional hit, it was picked up by RCA. Dismissed by critics, “In the Year 2525” sold more than 4 million copies by 1970 and now has topped the 10 million mark.

Corn

Lincoln Journal Star file photo

Standing tall and at attention, row after row, acre after acre, corn stalks guard the Great Plains. Native tribes in Nebraska planted corn long before the settlers arrived and had great success with it. Nebraska pioneers found the crop well suited to the state’s variable climate with its whipping winds, drought and harsh winters. These bountiful battalions are Nebraska’s agricultural front line and keepers of the kernels — Nebraska’s gold. An ear of corn averages 800 kernels in 16 rows, and those kernels add up.

In 2013, the USDA estimate was 1.61 billion bushels, based on 169 bushels per acre. Livestock feeding consumes nearly one-third of the state’s corn harvest. It takes 55 bushels of corn to feed a steer to market weight and 15 bushels to raise a pig.

Spread throughout much of the state, more than 20 ethanol plants have a capacity of nearly 20 billion gallons — making Nebraska the second-largest ethanol-producing state in the country. Combined, these plants use more than 700 million bushels of corn per year.

And since 1901, Cornhuskers has been a nickname for the University of Nebraska  football team, when Lincoln Journal sportswriter Cy Sherman coined the phrase in his sports copy. Although it was shortened to Huskers, fans with cornheads are regulars at Nebraska sports events.

Sod house

Lincoln Journal Star file photo

With a lack of trees or stone on the prairie, homesteaders looked to the land for building materials. Sod, made from thickly rooted prairie grass cut in 2- by 1-foot  chunks, was piled like bricks to make walls for the “soddy.” A simple sod house could be built in about a week for a cost of less than $5. The thick walls provided insulation against the summer temperatures, strong winds and winter cold, but leaky roofs were a problem, and the dirt floors needed to be watered down regularly, making it quite damp. One Fillmore County pioneer in 1873 described the process in letters to his wife: “All we have to do is plow up some sod (which will hang together for a half mile without breaking), cut in lengths to suit and lay up a wall & cover it and you have a house. To one who never seen one of our houses built of Nebraska brick, it would seem as though they were a dirty house, but they are warmer & cleaner than our hosier log cabins ever were.”

Keith Jacobshagen painting

Courtesy photo

Keith Jacobshagen moved to Lincoln to teach at the University of Nebraska in 1968. Now one of the most acclaimed artists in the state, Jacobshagen is the preeminent painter of the Great Plains.

Jacobshagen developed his connections with the flatland and big sky flying with his test pilot father while growing up in Wichita, Kan. Those flights led Jacobshagen to develop his unique perspective: painting as if he is standing yards above the ground, a view that lowers and lengthens the horizon.

Jacobshagen’s landscapes found an audience in the 1970s and can now be found in museums and prominent private and corporate collections. He is represented by several galleries around the country, including Kiechel Fine Art in Lincoln.

William Jennings Bryan campaign memorabilia

Nebraska State Historical Society

William Jennings Bryan was a Nebraska politician who ran for president of the United States as the Democratic Party candidate three times — in 1896, 1900 and 1908 — never winning, but bringing the national political debate closer to home.

Born in 1860 in Illinois, he came to Lincoln in 1887, where he was elected to the House of Representatives in 1890. Known for his oratory skills, Bryan traveled across the country campaigning on Populist issues and issues of the common man. Woodrow Wilson appointed Bryan secretary of state in 1913, during which time he worked to negotiate treaties before World War I broke out. Bryan left Nebraska during that time, moving to Florida, where he lived until his death in 1925.

Charles Starkweather’s rifles

Journal Star file photo

In January 1958, Lincoln garbageman Charles Starkweather killed 10 people on a murder spree that terrified Nebraskans and grabbed national attention.

The first spree killer of the television era, Starkweather and his teenage girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, became the subjects of intense media scrutiny and public interest after they were captured in Wyoming, where they had fled after the killings, nine of which took place in and around Lincoln. Starkweather was executed for the murders in 1959. Fugate served 17 years in prison and was released in 1976.

The story of Starkweather and Fugate continues to reverberate through popular culture. Bruce Springsteen wrote a song from Starkweather’s viewpoint, titled an album “Nebraska” and continues to perform those songs in his concerts. An ABC-TV miniseries, “Murder in the Heartland,” was based on the killing spree, and at least six feature films, including Terrence Malick’s classic “Badlands” and Oliver Stone’s controversial “Natural Born Killers,” were inspired by the story.

Whiteclay empty bottle

Journal Star file photo

Alcohol sales in Whiteclay have dropped during the past four years (2010 to 2013), but 336,217 gallons of alcohol were consumed in the Pine Ridge Reservation border town.

It remains a jarring statistic in a state that ranks high in many alcohol-related surveys. Nebraska ranks eighth nationally in beer consumption per capita, averaging 35.2 gallons per person over 21, according to 2012 figures from the Beer Institute, which represents the beer industry. And the state ranked 15th in craft breweries per capita in 2012, according to the Brewers Association.

Not all the stats shine a good light on Nebraska. Four cities made the Centers for Disease Control’s 2010 report of the top 20 binge drinking U.S. cities — Grand Island (19.4 percent of residents surveyed), Omaha (19.5 percent) Norfolk (20.2 percent) and Lincoln (22.7 percent).

And that list of metropolitan and micropolitan cities doesn’t include Whiteclay, where beverages like this one are sold by the millions.

Sugarbeet workers

Nebraska State Historical Society

The raising of sugar beets in Nebraska began as an experiment in Hall County in the 1880s. The land took to it, and then, for decades, migrants took to the land. Germans from Russia, Mexican immigrant families and others worked the land for five long months a year, with sugar companies hiring people based on the knowledge that their children would join them in the fields, as a 2005 Great Plains Quarterly article by Mary Lyons-Barret detailed.

Eastern Nebraska’s beets were considered too low in sugar, and plants closed in Norfolk in 1905 and Ames in 1906. They thrived in Scottsbluff and Bayard, though, and Great Western Sugar Company and American Sugar Company covered train fare for migrant workers to come there, only to offer many of them old rail cars, empty chicken coops or tents to live in, Lyons-Barret wrote. Investigations into child labor conditions in the sugarbeet industry would directly influence federal child labor laws in the 1930s.

Kawasaki KZ400 motorcycle

Kawasaki Motors Manufacturing Corp. U.S.A.

The first shiny KZ400 that rolled off the production line in January of 1975 was presented to then-Gov. Jim Exon by Yoji Hamawaki, president of the United States division of Kawasaki Motors. It was the beginning of an almost 40-year manufacturing alliance between the plant and the Capital City. Over the years the plant has evolved as it followed market trends. First motorcycles, then Jet Skis and later all-terrain vehicles and industrial robots, were made there. In 2000, the company invested $50 million in the plant as it accepted a contract to build light rail cars destined for the East Coast. The plant employs about 1,700 people with the consumer products side that produces personal watercraft and all-terrain vehicles and rail car production. There haven’t been any motorcycles off the line since 2007 when production of the motorbikes moved back to Japan. But the Japanese/Nebraska industrial alliance is going strong.

Carhenge

Courtesy photo

Dedicated on the summer solstice of 1987 by Jim Reinders and about 35 friends and family who didn’t question his sanity and helped him build it, the collection of 38 gray painted cars has at least one thing going for it that its inspiration, Stonehenge, doesn’t — we know why it exists.

Reinders built it as a tribute to his late father, according to Kevin Howard, director of the Alliance Visitors Bureau.

“It took 1,600 years for them to complete Stonehenge, and we did it in six days,” Reinders said on a documentary about the site, which still draws thousands of visitors a year.

The humongous roadside attraction that’s not near a major roadside (it’s about 80 miles north of Interstate 80) got a new owner last year — the city of Alliance.

Archie, the imperial mammoth

ERIC GREGORY/Lincoln Journal Star

Archie is short for Archidiskidon imperator maibeni, and he is one of the star attractions in Elephant Hall at the University of Nebraska State Museum of Natural History. The fossil, which roamed the Plains about 30,000 years ago, is one of the biggest and most complete in the country. It measures 25 feet, 7 inches from its long tusks to its tail and weighed about 15 tons. A bronze statue of Archie stands in front of the museum.

Archie and his prehistoric pals were all over Nebraska, and mammoth fossils have been found in every county in the state. They weren’t the only prehistoric relics that Nebraska has produced. At Ashfall Fossil Beds near Royal are fossils from more than 12 million years ago of elephants, camels and rhinos that grazed on the Great Plains.

Bride’s quilt

Nebraska State Historical Society

Martha Allis was born in Bellevue in 1840, daughter of missionaries Samuel and Emeline Allis. When she was set to marry her beloved, William George Hollin, on July 4, 1861, she made a Wreath of Roses pattern quilt to commemorate the event. Believed to be the oldest quilt made by a native Nebraskan, the quilt of red-and-green nine-rose wreaths surrounded by vines made of cotton was typical of other quilts that would be made over the decades by Nebraska women. Originally pieced by hand, and later by machine, the quilts told women’s stories in fabric and became beautifully crafted blankets that would keep families warm on cold nights on the prairie.

Lincoln Highway marker

ERIC GREGORY/Lincoln Journal Star

The 2,436 road markers, 220-pound hulks of rebar and concrete, were placed alongside the country-spanning Lincoln Highway about 15 years after Henry B. Joy first asked for driving directions west of Omaha in 1913. Joy, president of the Packard Motor Car Company and the first president of the Lincoln Highway Association, didn’t have much to go on.

Joy was on a cross-country tour from Detroit to the Pacific to promote better roadways, which, in turn, would promote the growing auto industry. The local Packard dealer told him to drive until he came to a fence, and then another fence, and another. When Joy ran out of fences, he followed two ruts across the prairie, according to a 1985 Smithsonian article.

The winding path taking drivers through Omaha, Elkhorn, Fremont and along the Platte River System to Wyoming became part of the privately funded New York-to-San Francisco Lincoln Highway. When it was decreed that the majority of the pivotal road would be renamed U.S. 30, the Lincoln Highway Association in 1928 arranged for Boy Scouts to place road markers like this one bearing the letter L and a bronze medallion depicting Abraham Lincoln across the countryside.

Explosives from ordnance plants

Smack in the middle of the country, Nebraska was deemed the perfect noncoastal site for bomb making in 1942 when World War II loomed, because it was easily reachable by trains in either direction. At one time there were four plants across the state in Mead, Hastings, Sidney and Grand Island. Mostly women were on the production line and were known as WOWs or Women Ordnance Workers. In Grand Island there were three shifts and more than 4,200 workers at the war’s peak manufacturing bombs up to 2,000 pounds. Although work stopped after the war ended, it began again during the Korean War and in Grand Island during the Vietnam War.

Buffalo coat from Buffalo Soldiers

Nebraska State Historical Society

Given the nickname by Native Americans likely because of their curly hair and buffalo coats worn in the winters, 10 units of the all-black U.S. Army cavalry served at Fort Robinson between 1885 and 1898.

“Lt. John Alexander, the second African-American graduate of West Point, and Henry Plummer, the first black chaplain in the regular Army, served here,” reads the historical marker at Fort Robinson State Park in Dawes County. “So did 10 Buffalo Soldier Medal of Honor men.”

Standing Bear’s headdress

Nebraska State Historical Society

He stood before a federal judge in Omaha in 1879 and testified that, after being forced from Ponca land, watching a third of his tribe die and being arrested following his return to the Niobrara to bury his teenage son’s bones, that he no longer felt like a chief, but rather a poor person.

The U.S. attorney’s position was that Standing Bear, because he was an Indian, was not a person of any sort under federal law. Judge Elmer Dundy sided with Standing Bear, a landmark decision in the continuing struggle for Indian rights.

Ted Kooser’s notebook

TED KIRK/Lincoln Journal Star

Ted Kooser, two-term U.S. poet laureate, helped secure Nebraska’s spot on the literary map when his book “Delights and Shadows” (Copper Canyon Press) won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 2005. From his home in rural Garland, Kooser takes pen in hand each morning before dawn and chronicles the nuances of everyday life, from screeching owls to small-town diners. Born in 1939 in Iowa, Kooser spent most of his 9-to-5 life as a life insurance executive, but he was writing poetry during that time, too. He is a Presidential Professor at the University of Nebraska teaching the writing of poetry and essays. His poetry even has been set to music. “Winter Morning Walks” won three Grammy awards for composer Maria Schneider and soprano Dawn Upshaw, who adapted the poems from his collection of the same name for an album.

J. Sterling Morton’s walking stick

ERIC GREGORY/Lincoln Journal Star

Although many think of J. Sterling Morton as Nebraska’s Johnny Appleseed because of his advocacy for tree planting, including heirloom apple trees, his legacy is much more than that. Born in New York and raised in Detroit, he came to Nebraska in 1854 and staked a claim in Nebraska City. Editor of the Nebraska City News, Morton became politically active and also well respected for his agricultural achievements — he was the secretary of agriculture for President Grover Cleveland. Like many men of the time, Morton carried a brass-topped walking stick, and his was inscribed with a Latin verse, which translates to “If you seek a monument, look around.” Morton’s monument — in addition to Arbor Day, the state holiday encouraging tree planting — can be seen in the many trees growing across the state.

SAC red phone

ERIC GREGORY/Lincoln Journal Star file photo

“Well, we all felt that this was in the cards, that unless we were good — if we slipped, if we were not capable of doing our job, that the Russians would eventually move in and take over,” Lt. Gen. James Edmundson, a former director of operations at the facility now known as Stratcom, told a PBS film crew when asked about the reality of a nuclear attack. From bomber pilots flying 24-hour-long training missions to the installation of this red telephone that fortunately never rang, the command center at Offutt Air Force Base prepared as if the unthinkable could happen at any moment at the height of the Cold War.

“It was a tough life,” said Edmundson, who died in the summer of 2001, months before Stratcom’s focus would dramatically shift.

Transcontinental Railroad

Lincoln Journal Star file photo

Building west from Omaha after President Abraham Lincoln approved legislation to build a railroad across the frontier, the Union Pacific railroad laid the first tracks of the Transcontinental Railroad on July 10, 1865. Thousands of workers swung hammers and laid rail ties for four years, and on May 10, 1869, the track was complete in Promontory, Utah.

Cities sprang up across the Plains like those following the ABC Burlington railroad. From Crete westward, towns about eight miles apart were named in alphabetical order — Crete, Dorchester, Exeter, Fairmont, Grafton, Hastings, Inland, Juniata, Kenesaw and Lowell. The Platte River railroad corridor is still chugging along, with Union Pacific, headquartered in Omaha, and BNSF Railway, the Berkshire Hathaway-owned company. Only two states, Texas and Illinois, have more railroad employees than Nebraska.

Willa Cather’s William Dean Howells Medal

Courtesy photo

Although Willa Cather was not a native Nebraskan — born in 1873 in Virginia — we claim the famous author as ours, because many of her novels revolve around her hometown of Red Cloud and the Great Plains. Winning the Pulitzer Prize for “One of Ours” in 1923 and gaining recognition for “O Pioneers!” and “My Antonia,” Cather gained national literary attention with her descriptive prose that captured the spirit of the state’s early inhabitants. Then, in 1930, Cather received the William Dean Howells Medal for her book “Death Comes for the Archbishop.” Before she wrote novels, she wrote reviews for the Lincoln Journal newspaper as a student at the University of Nebraska. Cather moved to Pittsburgh, then New York, shortly after graduating from the University of Nebraska, but she returned to Red Cloud several times before her death in 1947.

Kregel windmill

ERIC GREGORY/Lincoln Journal Star

One thing Nebraska has plenty of is wind, and George F. Kregel found a way to use it. In 1879 Kregel developed a water-pumping windmill that would harness that wind and help pioneer farmers survive on the prairie. At first, the Nebraska City manufacturing company installed the windmills and water supply equipment and helped farmers maintain and repair them. During the 20th century, the company focused mostly on water well maintenance and the pump repair business.

Even though they have not been mass produced since the early 1940s, Kregel Windmill Company Eli-brand windmills are still found in service pumping life-giving water for both humans and livestock. The factory remains intact — exactly as it was after it closed in 1989 — and has been reopened as the Kregel Windmill Factory Museum.

Homestead certificate

A homestead certificate.

Homestead National Monument

Four miles west of Beatrice, the Homestead National Monument is the site of Daniel Freeman’s claim under the Homestead Act of 1862. He is said to have filed it 10 minutes after midnight at the Land Office in Brownville on Jan. 1, 1863, making him one of the first to take advantage of Abraham Lincoln’s legislation. All homesteaders had to be at least 21 years old, got 160 acres of land and had five years to “prove up” by living on the land, building a home and farming for five years. Total filing fee: $18. Freeman and his wife, Agnes, did just that and raised eight children there. About 270 million acres were claimed across the nation under this act.

Runza sandwich

Runza

Courtesy photo

Germans from Russia brought the runza sandwich to Nebraska. A bread pocket filled with meat, cabbage, onions and seasonings goes by different names and comes in different shapes. But only in Nebraska did it give rise to a chain of fast-food restaurants. Ingredients now may vary, but the taste — whether homemade or restaurant-bought — is uniquely Nebraskan.

Chimney Rock

Chimney Rock — near present-day Bayard — was a well-known landmark for pioneers during the western migration.

Nebraska Tourism

Standing almost 300 feet above the surround North Platte River Valley, Chimney Rock in western Nebraska bade farewell from the state as Pioneers headed west on the Oregon, California and Mormon trails. Its image has adorned licenses plates and Nebraska’s state quarter. It’s made of layers of clay, volcanic ash and sandstone.

Warren Buffett

Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett.

The Associated Press

One of the richest men in world, the Oracle of Omaha is known for his down-to-earth style, common-sense financial philosophy and his philanthropy. As chairman, CEO and largest shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett is considered by many to be the most successful investor of the 20th century, but he’s known equally for his personal frugality.

CliffsNotes

CliffsNotes study guide for “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

Courtesy photo

Before the Internet and Wikipedia, the distinctive yellow-and-black covers of CliffsNotes adorned the bookshelves of many a college and high school student. The series of study guides (which are not to be used as a substitute for reading the actual text, OK?) was launched in Lincoln by Cliff Hillegass and his wife Catherine. From the original 16 Shakespeare titles, CliffsNotes has grown to include hundreds of works and has saved many a student.

Giant porch swing

Hebron claims to be the home of the world’s largest porch swing.

City of Hebron

Hebron is home to what was and may still be the world’s largest porch swing. Built from a giant crop irrigator pole, the swing seats between 18 and 24 depending on bun width. It sits in Roosevelt Park downtown, not on an actual front porch. Reportedly a larger porch swing may have been built in 2012 in Canada, but Hebron’s still seems pretty big.

Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium

Visitors check out the jungle exhibit at the Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium.

DAN LITTLE/Lincoln Journal Star

Earlier this year, Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium was named by TripAdvisor the world’s best zoo. Marking its 120th year this year, the zoo is home to the Desert Dome, built in 2002, which is both the world’s largest indoor desert and the largest glazed geodesic dome. And the indoor Leid Jungle has been fogging up eyeglasses on cold winter days for 22 years.

Oregon Trail

This boulder/historic marker is on the corner of U.S. 77 and Saltillo Road and notes where the Oregon Trail, California Trail, Fort Kearny Road, Steam Wagon Road and Oregon Trail Cut-Off crossed Lancaster County. A few traces of the trail are still visible on Salt Creek and the surrounding fields to the southeast of the marker.

Courtesy photo

The 2,200-mile Oregon Trail connected the Missouri River to fertile valleys in, you guessed it, Oregon. Following along the Oregon Trail through Nebraska were the California, Mormon and Bozeman trails, which separated from each other after leaving the western edge of Nebraska. Between the 1830s and the 1870s, around 400,000 pioneers used the trail across Nebraska.

College World Series

An NCAA baseball lies in the outfield of TD Ameritrade Park June 13, 2014.

Dave Weaver/The Associated Press

Since 1950 Omaha has hosted the College World Series, where eight teams square off in a double elimination tournament to decide the NCAA Division I baseball champion. Through 2010, games were held at Rosenblatt Stadium. Beginning in 2011, the series moved to TD Ameritrade Park Omaha. The NCAA has signed a contract that will keep the tournament in Omaha through at least 2035.

Arbor Day

Poyuan Yin, 9, of Omaha, gets into the task of apple-picking at Arbor Day Farm in Nebraska City.

KAYLEE EVERLY/Lincoln Journal Star

J. Sterling Morton moved to Nebraska from Detroit, Mich., in 1854. Along with his family and furniture, he brought a love to trees, which he felt were sorely needed in his new home territory (Nebraska became a state in 1867), so using the newspaper he owned as a pulpit, he campaigned for the establishment of Arbor Day, a holiday set aside for the planting of trees. On April 10, 1872, more than one million trees were planted in connection with the first Arbor Day. The holiday later expanded nationwide and globally.

Yellow school buses

Yellow school bus

The Associated Press

It’s hard to believe something as ubiquitous as the yellow school bus has its origins in Nebraska, but Franklin-born educator Frank W. Cyr in the 1930s led a group that standardized many features of the nation’s school buses, most prominently their yellow-orange color, which was found to be the most visible at sunrise and late afternoon. Cyr, who eventually left Nebraska, is known as the father of the yellow school bus.

Beef

Cattle graze at Briggs Feed Yard outside of Seward.

Lincoln Journal Star file photo

Nebraska has the top three beef cattle counties in the United States, according to the UNL Beef Team, in Cherry, Custer and Holt counties. Cattle flourish on Nebraska’s grasslands, and the state flourishes, to the tune of $12.1 billion, which is the estimated impact of the beef industry on the state. And this year Nebraska overtook Texas as the top beef-producing state in the U.S.

Ogallala Aquifer

Ogallala Aquifer in 2014.

USGS

Nebraska is home to America’s largest underground lake, or aquifer, which stretches north to South Dakota and south to northern Texas. But in Nebraska the aquifer involves the largest geographic area and is in places more than 1,000 feet deep. It supplies the vast majority of drinking water in Nebraska and provides agriculture with the water needed for irrigation.

North Platte Canteen

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Legendary San Francisco LGBTQ bar the Stud is making a comeback years after closing during the pandemic. Mayor London Breed joined members of Stud Collective, the group behind the bar, Tuesday to announce it will be opening again at a new location in the SoMa neighborhood.

The bar’s next iteration will be located on Folsom Street, just blocks away from the bar’s former home on 19th and Harrison streets.

“It’s twice as big as our old space,” said Rachel Ryan, the president of the collective and general manager. “It has twice as many bathrooms.

When The Stud closed in May 2020, the city mourned the loss of what Mayor London Breed called “a San Francisco institution.”

“One of the first Leather District bars,” Breed said. “One of the first places people talked about, where they came to see amazing drag shows and DJs.”

Until its closure during the pandemic, The Stud was the city’s oldest, continuously-operated queer bar. It opened its doors in 1966.

During the announcement Tuesday, State Senator Scott Weiner talked fondly about finding the bar after moving to San Francisco in the 1990s.

“I think, within a month or two, I was at the Stud and I spent a lot of time there,” Weiner said.

The club will be owned and run by the Stud Collective. Getting to this point involved a lot of help from local leaders, including Weiner, Breed, and several of the city’s supervisors.

The bar will also benefit from San Francisco’s First Year Free program, which waives all city fees for permitting and licensing during the first year of a small business’s operation.

“We have to do everything we can to get out of the way of small businesses. Especially nightlife, which is an important part of not just our economic recovery, but our ability to have fun in San Francisco,” Breed said.

Still, the bar has some hurdles to overcome. High up on that list is the cost of renovating the new Folsom Street space.

“We are going to need everyone to contribute raising the funds,” said Honey Mahogany, a member of the Stud Collective.

The Stud is turning to the public for help, aiming to raise half a million dollars through crowdfunding.

“To get the licensing, permitting up to date,” said Mahogany. “To rebuild this bar, to turn it into a queer nightlife venue where we can dance all night, where we have drag shows every day of the week, where we celebrate our queerness and are unapologetic about it.”

The Stud plans to open by the end of winter, according to its website.

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By Jack Rogers

August 15, 2023 at 06:12 AM

Company sold 20-acre Bay Area property to e-retail giant in 2021.

San Mateo-based SteelWave has filed plans to redevelop a 20-acre site in Pleasanton that it sold to Amazon two years ago.

The developer is planning to build a 300K SF mixed-use campus at the Bay Area site on El Charro Road on the east side of Pleasanton, according to a report in the San Francisco Business Times.

The plans call for two industrial buildings encompassing 131K SF and 156K SF, respectively, and a two-story 12K SF commercial building that will be suitable for office or retail use.

In the fall of 2021, SteelWave and Lionstone Investment Group sold the Pleasanton property, along with six other parcels to Amazon, which at the time was planning to build a large distribution center there.

The plans filed this month will necessitate rezoning the property from agricultural use and will require approval from Pleasanton’s planning commission and the city council. The project also would require approval from Alameda County because it sits within an unincorporated portion of the county.

The company did not disclose whether it is planning to repurchase the land from Amazon.

Last fall, SteelWave unveiled plans to build a $241M life science on a site spanning two city blocks in West Berkeley. The project envisions the renovation of three buildings on a 3-acre site on 5th Street, between Bancroft Way and Allston Way, transforming them into campus that will be known as theLAB.

The developer also is planning to build a five-story, 415-space parking garage next doorto  theLab. Nine structures are being demolished or moved to make way for the project, including a 144-year home on Fifth Street.

According to a report in berkeleyside, SteelWave has lined up two tenants, Bolt Threats and Conception Bio for theLab, which is scheduled to open in 2024.

SteelWave acquired the West Berkeley site in January 2021, also is planning to build two more theLAB campuses in Emeryville and Foster City.

The design for theLAB Berkeley includes exposed bow-truss ceilings and an expansive indoor-outdoor mezzanine overlooking San Francisco Bay. The facility also will include an amphitheater lab and a boutique gym.

SteelWave is converting the Sherwin building in Emeryville into theLAB Emeryville. The adaptive reuse of the building will include large-scale cosmetic renovations, structural upgrades, full building core replacement and new installation of mechanical, electrical and plumbing infrastructure.

The Emeryville campus also will feature a penthouse and “pass-through” pedestrian and bicycle access.

The Foster City development will be home to a three-story Class A building on a 2.2-acre site. The campus will feature a third-floor rooftop terrace that offers extensive views of the San Francisco Peninsula.

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